This Acte contained two, or we may even say three, considerable Doric cities, and one whose origin is unknown. The two most ancient places are EPIDAURUS and TROEZEN; HERMIONE arose somewhat later; and at a still later period, though we do not know when, was built the town of HALIAE, which is not marked in our maps, not even in that of D’Anville. Troezen and Epidaurus appear, in the Greek traditions, among the most ancient places; we find them mentioned along with Eïonae[15], and they are certainly more ancient than the Doric migration. In Scymnus[16], indeed, the Doric chiefs appear as founders, though the traditions of Troezen went back to Pelops; but this only alludes to the fact, that a new order of things began at the time of the Dorian conquest. All those towns, in developing their constitutions, passed through the same process as Rome and other cities: they begin with an aristocracy of conquerors, under whom the original inhabitants occupy the position of clients, or _penestae_; but afterwards the latter become free, the conquered rise to the rank of a _demos_, the ancient aristocracy gradually dies away, and the subject country people gain the ascendancy. In the case of Epidaurus, we have the proof in the tradition about the Artyni and Conipodes, the former of whom were Dorians, and the latter the Achaean country people. All these places of the Acte were maritime towns; whereas Argos never had any navy and was quite a stranger to the sea. The Greeks are almost everywhere born sailors, even in their Italian colonies; and so it has ever been down to the present day. The Italian, on the other hand, is born for agriculture; no real Italian is a navigator, for Venice is inhabited by Slavonians, and Genoa by Ligurians who do not belong to the race of true Italians; the Greek colonists in Italy, as at Naples, are fishermen, and often carry their fish to Rome from a distance of several hundred miles. Those places of the Acte, if we bear in mind the small extent of their dominion, had a considerable number of galleys; at Salamis their number, which was not small, does great honour to the patriotism of the people, and we can easily see that their power was not insignificant. HERMIONE is also called Hermion, and we cannot say which of the two names is the older one; in Thucydides we only find the ethnic name of the people when they come forward with others; for in the place itself no occurrence is mentioned. HALIAE, situated between Hermion and Nauplia, arose from a settlement of fishermen, whence the ethnic name Ἁλιῆς or Ἁλιεῖς in Thucydides and Scylax. The place has been overlooked, because most geographers were but indifferent Greek scholars, and because the Latin translation of Thucydides renders Ἁλιῆς by _piscatores_.